HRC Blog

A Place at the Table: A Lecture Series on LGBT Identity

Post submitted by Tiffany Tosh, member of the Board of Governors for the HRC Houston Steering Committee, and Camille Holmes-Bonilla, HRC Diversity Intern

Starting today, the Human Rights Campaign and The Jung Center will sponsor “A Place at the Table,” a series of lectures addressing the historical, political and societal issues that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and their families & friends encounter.

This inaugural series will take place every Thursday throughout September at The Jung Center. The HRC Houston Steering Committee is exuberant about our first-time collaboration with The Jung Center, a unique nonprofit in Houston’s Museum District that provides a forum for dynamic conversations on a diverse range of psychological, artistic, and spiritual topics. The goal of this series is to initiate an authentic dialogue about the personal and historical journeys of the LGBT community, and provide a non-judgmental environment for straight individuals to learn about these experiences while supporting their LGBT friends and family members as allies.

To kickoff the series, B. Jill Carroll, PhD will start with “Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall: A Brief History of the Modern Gay Rights Movement”. The following week’s lecture, “The Legal Status of LGBT Rights”, will be led by Mitchell Katine, a name familiar to many for his role as local counsel in the landmark United States Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas. The third installment, “Navigating the LGBT Alphabet in 2013: Reflecting on Sexual Diversity from a Jungian Perspective” is presented by Robert Hopcke, a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice who specializes in working with issues in sexuality, religion and spirituality. To wrap up the series, John Schwartz, a national correspondent for The New York Times, will give a personal perspective in “Raising an Oddly Normal Child” about his family’s journey when his teenage son came out.

The series has garnered great support from the local community with underwriting generously provided by Shell and The Hollyfield Foundation, and is locally co-sponsored by Equality Texas, The Montrose Center, Legacy Community Health Services, and PFLAG.

Conversations like these are important to moving equality in Texas, which lacks crucial rights for the LGBT community, including workplace protections, adoption rights, and marriage equality.